There’s more to the imminent Olympic Games in Beijing than meets the eye. So what’s hidden behind the slogan of One World, One Dream?
Two weeks ago, the Whitehall mandarins, ministerial aides and officials who will be in Beijing when the Olympic Games open on Friday were summoned for what they thought would be a series of pro-forma chats with MI5. What they heard was hair-raising.
“It was all very James Bond,” according to one of the 100 or more who were called in by the security service. “We were told to trust nobody. We were warned that there is going to be a huge spy presence in Beijing, and that we should expect to be followed wherever we go.”
The alert came after The Sunday Times reported that a top aide accompanying Gordon Brown to China early this year had been caught in a suspected “honeytrap” by a woman who vanished from his hotel room with his BlackBerry.
The aides and officials accompanying Brown and four ministers to the Olympics were told they must take no laptops and that all BlackBerries or mobile phones must be “clean” – containing no contact numbers or other information.
It is a reminder that, although China has transformed itself into a more self-confident, outgoing and even outspoken society than it was when awarded the games seven years ago, it is still ruled by authoritarians who are above the law.
The official slogan is One World, One Dream. But these are also the Spying Games.
China has justified heavy security measures, entailing the deployment of 110,000 security personnel in Beijing and restrictions on visas, by the need to protect the Olympics against unspecified threats of terrorism.
Surface to air missiles have been placed around the Olympic “bird’s nest” stadium, and from 2pm on Friday – six hours before the opening ceremony is due to start – airports around Beijing will be in lock-down. The army has been instructed to shoot down anything that moves in the five designated air zones above the city. There is much more than an antiterrorist exercise going on, however. A western intelligence official said the Chinese security services saw the Olympics as “a goldmine for intelligence gathering, blackmail and commercial secrets”.
The US state department issued an official warning this year to travellers attending the games that there was “no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations” in China.
It’s not just that the men on the streets in Good Luck Beijing T-shirts and lookalike baseball caps are likely to be vigilantes looking for troublemakers. The man coming into your hotel room to change your free slippers may also be on the security payroll.
“The [British] security services seem particularly worried about the Chinese hotel staff going into our bedrooms,” said a senior aide who will be accompanying ministers.
“We were told they will find an excuse to go into our room five or more times a day. They’ll say they’ve come to change the free slippers – but actually they’ll be on the lookout for any phones or documents we might have left lying around.” Last December Jonathan Evans, director-general of MI5, warned that China was carrying out state-sponsored espionage against vital parts of Britain’s economy, including the computer systems of big banks and financial services firms.
A main fear now is that business visitors to China will be permanently subject to “a cold war level” of industrial espionage from systems put in place for the games.
Two industry sources have confirmed that internet surveillance software to spy on guests at the games has been installed at some international hotel chains after heavy pressure from state security.
It means that business leaders, politicians and government officials using the internet in some of Beijing’s most prestigious hotels can expect the Chinese authorities to monitor e-mails, website visits and private passwords.
The sources confirmed allegations by an American senator, Sam Brownback, who has disclosed the existence of a threatening order from the Public Security Bureau (PSB) to hotel managers ordering them to comply with its operatives.
“Exactly right,” said one of the sources, who said he was familiar with the instructions due to his management position, “it is authentic”.
The PSB document said that “in order to ensure the smooth opening of the Olympics in Beijing . . . it is required that your company install and run the security management system”.
